Rebirth as a Demonic Cultivator: Starting with a Zombie Planet

Chapter 78: Mushroom City! Mushroom People!

High above the clouds, Chu Xuan soared on his Heavenly Dipper Flying Sword. A few mutated birds, overestimating their predatory prowess, foolishly attempted to make a meal out of him. He slaughtered them without a second thought.

Gazing down at the desolate ruins below, a flicker of intrigue crossed Chu Xuan’s face. “Fascinating. A city of mushrooms?”

To the east of Donghu City, the urban sprawl had been entirely consumed by a fungal bloom. The cracked asphalt, the crumbling walls, the rotting corpses, and even the rusted utility poles were smothered beneath a thick canopy of caps. Crimson, sickly green, jaundiced yellow, and bone white—they blanketed everything. As a gentle breeze swept through the ruins, the fungal forest swayed in eerie unison. Clouds of spores plumed into the air, drifting westward toward Donghu City.

As if detecting the heat of a living organism, the drifting spore clouds suddenly shifted, swarming upward toward Chu Xuan.

He didn’t even blink. With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed a Netherfire Bomb into the cloud. A burst of spectral flame erupted, instantly incinerating the parasitic dust into harmless ash.

Hovering safely on his sword, Chu Xuan surveyed the fungal metropolis. At first glance, the vibrant colors gave the illusion of teeming vitality. But beneath that garish exterior lay an absolute, suffocating silence. It was a dead zone. The fungus hadn’t just overgrown the city; it had devoured every ounce of life within it.

It seems my time in Secluded Cultivation allowed a new crop of supernatural biomass to flourish, he thought.

Rather than alarm, a cold satisfaction washed over him. To Chu Xuan, these apocalyptic mutations were never threats. With sufficient power, they were merely insects waiting to be crushed. The only variable was utility: some insects were worthless, while others could be harvested.

Finding no other living creatures to exploit in the immediate vicinity, he urged his sword eastward. He soon crossed the borders of Linjiang Province, entering Hanhai Province.

Hanhai Province, he mused, noting the even denser clusters of fungal cities below. If I recall correctly, the local warlords here call themselves the Boat Gang.

He stared down at the sprawling, tumor-like growths consuming the landscape, his mind already calculating the potential yields.

…

Meanwhile, in Yuhai City, the provincial capital of Hanhai.

As the core territory of the Boat Gang, this stronghold should have been an impenetrable fortress. Instead, it had become a fungal slaughterhouse.

Frantic gunfire echoed through the bloodstained streets and narrow alleys. For every Mushroom Person gunned down, two more shambled forward to take its place.

The infection rate was catastrophic. Any survivor who suffered the slightest spore contamination in an open wound, or inhaled the toxic dust, would violently mutate in under an hour. Without immediate, drastic intervention, they were seamlessly assimilated into the fungal horde. It was this relentless, self-replicating nightmare that allowed the parasitic menace to sweep across the province unopposed.

“Die!” the Boat Gang Leader roared.

The muscles in his arms bulged grotesquely, swelling until they were thicker than a grown man’s torso. He heaved a massive, rusted ship’s anchor through the air, obliterating an encroaching Mushroom Person into a spray of pulpy gore.

As a formidable Level 4 Enhancement-type Awakened One, his physical mutations were concentrated in his upper body. When fully unleashed, his arms expanded to four times their natural size, granting him the monstrous torque needed to wield the multi-ton anchor like a flail.

“Old Lu! Another wave is pushing in! Hold the line!” the Leader bellowed over the din of battle.

Silence answered him.

Gritting his teeth, the Boat Gang Leader stomped down, caving in a mutant’s skull beneath his heavy boot, and vaulted onto a ruined car to get a better vantage point. His blood ran cold. The Awakened One squad holding the flank had been completely overrun by the fungal tide.

His trusted lieutenant, Old Lu, was already lost. Sickly fungal caps had sprouted across the entire left half of his body, rooting deep into his flesh. Old Lu’s face contorted in a horrifying tug-of-war between human rationality and parasitic madness.

Desperately clinging to his fading mind, Old Lu drew a combat knife from his belt and plunged it to the hilt into his own thigh. The blinding pain bought him a fleeting second of clarity.

“Boss…” Old Lu choked out, blood and spores spilling from his lips. “Kill me!”

But the parasite was too strong. The very next instant, Old Lu’s eyes rolled back, and he launched himself at his leader with unnatural, mutated speed. The fungal integration had supercharged his muscles. In a blur of motion, he closed the distance, his jaw unhinging grotesquely to spray a lethal cloud of spores directly at the Leader’s face.

“Rest in peace, brother,” the Boat Gang Leader rasped, his face twisting in grief.

He swung the massive anchor in a brutal, downward arc.

CRACK!

The heavy iron drove Old Lu’s head straight into the cracked concrete, obliterating his skull. A gruesome slurry of blood, brain matter, and crushed fungus splattered across the pavement. The ruined corpse twitched violently for a few seconds before finally going still.

A fresh burst of automatic gunfire erupted nearby. Moments later, a battered squad fell back to the Leader’s position, laying down suppressing fire as they retreated.

At their head was a burly, scarred man named Feng Biao. Like the Leader, Feng Biao had been a simple East Sea fisherman before the apocalypse. When the Zombies first overran the world, he had been lucky enough to Awaken, joining the ranks of the Awakened Ones.

“Status on the North District?” the Leader demanded.

Feng Biao shook his head, his chest heaving. “It’s gone. We’re the only ones who made it out. Everyone else is dead.”

The Boat Gang Leader’s expression darkened into a mask of despair.

The nightmare had started a month ago with just a few sporadic fungal growths on the outskirts of Yuhai City. At first, no one cared. The Boat Gang had easily crushed an early skirmish with a wandering pack of Mushroom People. Those initial mutants had been pathetically weak—a single Level 1 Awakened One could butcher three of them in melee, and even unawakened survivors could gun them down with basic firearms.

Arrogance had taken root. The Boat Gang assumed the entire fungal horde was just as fragile, even mocking the mighty Linjiang Army’s collapse as a pathetic joke. How could a military force lose to such brittle weeds?

That hubris had bred fatal complacency. The Boat Gang Leader had issued strict mandates: all food and water supplies were to be rigorously inspected daily to prevent spore contamination. But his subordinates had grown lazy. They cut corners. And with a pathogen as hyper-infectious as the mutant spores, a half-measure was no measure at all.

The result was an apocalyptic cascade. The North, South, and West Districts fell in a matter of days, overwhelmed by a sudden, explosive surge of the infected. Tens of thousands of ordinary civilians under the Boat Gang’s protection were slaughtered, their corpses serving as fertile soil for the ever-expanding fungal army.

Now, their only remaining avenue of escape was to retreat to the East District docks, board their vessels, and flee into the ocean.

But the Leader knew that was practically suicide. The post-apocalyptic seas were infinitely more terrifying than the ruined land. The deep waters teemed with colossal, mutated leviathans. A single thrash from one of those abyssal horrors could summon tidal waves capable of splintering their fleet into driftwood.

Fleeing to the sea was a desperate, doomed gambit. Yet, it was the only card they had left to play.

“The Linjiang Army is shattered. Ye Nanxia is missing in action,” the Leader muttered, the heavy anchor resting against his blood-soaked shoulder. He looked at the ragged remnants of his men, a profound, hollow uncertainty creeping into his eyes for the first time. “Who else is there to save us?”

Feng Biao watched his boss. Seeing the unbreakable pillar of their faction finally cracking under the weight of despair, a heavy sigh escaped his lips. The Boat Gang was the undisputed hegemon of Hanhai Province. Were they truly destined to share the Linjiang Army’s fate—broken, scattered, and devoured?

“Move out,” the Boat Gang Leader ordered, his voice hardening with grim resolve. “Fall back to the East District and prep the ships. We hug the coastline. Under no circumstances do we venture into the open sea.”

“Understood,” Feng Biao and the surviving Awakened Ones chorused.

Taking to the water was like drinking poison to quench a thirst—a delayed death sentence. But dying tomorrow was still better than dying today. As long as they drew breath, there was always a sliver of hope that they could reclaim their world.